Wide receiver Jalen Greene of the USC Trojans lines up for a snap during the fourth quarter of the college football game against the Arizona Wildcats at Arizona Stadium on October 15, 2016 in Tucson, Arizona. (Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images, file)

LOS ANGELES >> They have won eight in a row by an average of nearly three touchdowns, which is a margin the same way the Grand Canyon is a pothole.

In fact, the only opponent that has stayed within a dozen points of the USC Trojans during their run has been Colorado, which lost at the Coliseum 21-17 more than two months ago.

So, is there a team in college football right now, other than perpetually and annoyingly No. 1 Alabama, that the opposition would prefer to play less than USC?

Well, sure. Penn State has won nine in a row, including victories over Ohio State, Wisconsin and Iowa.

You remember the Hawkeyes, correct? The week before they famously beat then-undefeated Michigan, they lost to the Nittany Lions and not just by a little bit. The final score was 41-14, speaking of things both grand and canyon-like.

That means the teams no one wants to face will, conveniently and epically, be each other in the 2017 Rose Bowl, a matchup that couldn’t possibly be any more perfect or anticipated.

Unless of course, this sport took seriously the process used to identify its champion.

Just imagine if the Trojans and Nittany Lions were meeting Jan. 2 in Pasadena for something more than the right to run off the field afterward carrying long-stemmed flowers in their teeth.

You’ll have to imagine it because this is college football, which at this time of year, requires closing your eyes and picturing all the wonderful possibilities the adults simply won’t allow to happen.

Hey, I’m like everyone else; I think the Rose Bowl is awesome, too. This game leaves all the others in chilly shadows similar to the ones cast by the San Gabriel Mountains.

But I think this sport also remains comically stalled in the darkness, what with a contrived committee still having final say over the actual teams when it comes time to vie for the title.

“I can’t control that, but there’s a lot more competitive teams than just four,” USC tackle Zach Banner said. “I can’t take anything away from the four teams that made it. But, if we’re going to have a true champion, a really true champion…”

Banner, the most talkative of all the Trojans, didn’t finish the thought, only because he didn’t have to. He understood that his fade-to-silence said more than enough.

Honestly now, how much greater would this potentially great Rose Bowl be if it were a playoff game? If we had a system legitimate enough that some of the sport’s biggest names wouldn’t opt to just bail on their team’s bowl?

Only college football has a postseason so shaky that a player the caliber of Christian McCaffrey would decide the better choice was to abandon his teammates.

This is football remember, the game that more than another other, loves to preach family and brotherhood. It’s “Next Man Up” after all, not “First Man Out.”

And this is McCaffrey, who barely two weeks ago was presented with an award at Stanford recognizing his commitment to the community.

No, I didn’t make that up.

Just for fun, let’s say college football had a 12-team playoff field and USC beat Penn State to advance to meet one of the four teams that received a first-round bye.

Now, just for more fun, let’s say the team waiting in Round 2 was Ohio State. Yeah, you’re right, who’d want to see the Trojans take on the Buckeyes? In football? In the playoffs?

Among the problems with a four-slot bracket is the glaring lack of room to reward teams for rallying to finish strong, teams this season such as USC, Penn State and Oklahoma, each doing nothing but following the exact blueprint coaches routinely espouse.

Isn’t the stated goal always about weekly improvement? Aren’t teams supposed to be playing their best football at the end? How many times have we heard about the importance of playing to the whistle?

That’s precisely what the Trojans just did. Their reward for rebounding from a 1-3 start being a spot in a fantastic bowl game that, unfortunately, can’t be anything more than a fantasy playoff game.

“Our season could have gone up or gone down,” USC receiver Darreus Rogers said. “We realized it was up to all of us. We understood we had to do it for each other. That’s when things started to change.”

Well the quarterback also changed; Sam Darnold’s emergence lifting the Trojans’ season in the fashion of the blimp that will hang majestically over the Rose Bowl next month.

From that angle, the events below promise to shimmer on another bright, glorious Pasadena afternoon.

“We’re playing in the Rose Bowl,” Banner said. “That’s an awesome thing. They don’t put that statistic on the wall for nothing. We should feel blessed having this great opportunity.”

It is a great opportunity, almost as great as the one the Trojans, Nittany Lions and all the rest of us are still being denied.